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Watershed Monitoring

Organization
and Establishment of the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring
Program (SWAMP)

The
federal Clean Water Act , the State’s 1983 Water
Quality Assurance Act (Section 373.026, F.S.), Section
403.061 F.S., and State Water Policy (Section 62-40.540,
F.A.C.) provide DEP with water quality monitoring,
assessment, and data management responsibilities and
authorities. The Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program
(SWAMP) is an effort started in 1991 to revitalize
monitoring programs at DEP to better address the federal
and state water quality management and assessment
requirements. SWAMP is an interagency collaborative
effort to coordinate Florida’s monitoring efforts. It
is also DEP’s primary surface water quality monitoring
program and central repository for surface water quality
data.

It was
not designed to identify causes of pollution, monitor
compliance of point sources, or allow a thorough detailed
understanding of an ecosystem, but rather to screen water
bodies to provide a broad assessment of water quality.
Information generated from this program would be used to
develop total maximum daily loads (TMDLs), identify water
bodies for more detailed studies, and potentially
identify water bodies for restoration and rehabilitation.

The
overall program goal of SWAMP is to provide information
to the public, elected officials, and DEP mangers about
the health of Florida's water bodies, whether they meet
standards and criteria, and the occurrence of changes in
quality in a technically sound, timely manner, and easily
understandable format using water chemistry, sediment,
and biological data.

SWAMP’s
stated objectives are:

Identifying
and documenting the existing condition of the State's
surface waters through a status network.

Determining
support of State water quality criteria;

Identifying
changes in water quality over time of significant
water bodies through a trend network;